Writing in Public: Pedagogical Uses of Blogging in the Communication Course Volume 20 Numbers 1 & 2, 2010 Carrie Anne Platt Department of Communication North Dakota State University Abstract: This paper explores the value of blogging in both undergraduate and graduate level communication courses. Using three different courses at an upper Midwest public university as case studies, it addresses both the posi- tive and negative outcomes that can result from incorporating blogging into the communication curriculum. As the case studies presented illustrate, “writ- ing in public” has the potential to increase student engagement, improve the quality of student writing, facilitate peer-to-peer learning, make the connec- tion between theory and practice more concrete, and help students develop necessary levels of multi-media literacy. After considering the pedagogical outcomes of blogging in these communication courses, along with student feedback on their blogging experiences, the paper concludes by outlining a set of best practices for the educational use of this social media technology. Good academic writing cannot occur in a vacuum. As Gerald Graff and Cathy Birken- stein put it, “writing well means entering into a conversation with others” (2006, p. x). Writing is an inherently social act, a continual process of commending and critiquing other people’s ideas, while exposing our own ideas to the same type of external scruti- ny. We embrace this conversational model of writing in our scholarship and in our teaching, encouraging students to review what has already been written on their topic before deciding where they stand. Our best students prove themselves to be excellent listeners when it comes to recounting what they have learned from previous scholar- ship. But, generally speaking, our students’ voices remain limited by the confines of the